Plain Talk: Early Fall Management (196)

Episode 196 – Plain Talk: Early Fall Management

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Jim Tew: Listeners, hi. I cannot believe that Goldenrod and Fall asters are in bloom right now. If I possibly could, I would have you fully believe that I am exactly on the money and that my schedule with my bees is always spot on, but in reality, I'm still somewhere back in late spring, early summer if not in reality, certainly in my mind. I just can't believe that the season's already gone.

You start every year thinking this is the year, this is it. Then when you see Goldenrod, you begin to realize if you don't have it by now, there's a great chance you're not going to get it. That's what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes. Listeners, I'm Jim Tew, and I come to you about once a week with some aspect of plain talk beekeeping here on Honey Bee Obscura.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honeybees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honeybees.

Jim: It's much better if I'm truthful. Sometimes the truth is not particularly pretty. In my life, I see three lists. All the things that I should do with my beehives, first list. Second list is all the things that need to be done, not that could be done, but that really need to be done with my beehives. Then the third even shorter list is the things that I can actually get done.

How do I practice triage in my bee yard and choose from those three lists? That's what I'm struggling with because the season is gone and I made a good honey crop. I picked up a couple of swarms. Overall, it wasn't a bad year. Overall, my bees didn't demand much from me. Most of the time they got by on their own. Now it's time. Since I have bees and these artificial domiciles packed too close together, they would never live this close together in the wild, I've got the populations too large, much larger than they would be in the cavity of a tree or the floor of someone's house.

I have taken on responsibility. I'm like a dog chasing a car. Once you catch it, what do you do with it? Now, all these years ago, I decided to be a beekeeper and be responsible for these bees and put them in, for them, artificial conditions. Now I've got to work with them. What am I going to do on these lists to fulfill my responsibilities as well as I can, given my time and my place in life right now?

Number one, before the weather gets any worse, I really need to cut grass. As mundane as that is, I've talked about it, I've written articles about it. Cutting grass is not beekeeping. Through the years, I've tried everything. One or two seasons, I didn't cut grass. I just let it go wild and I spent my time with the bees and doing other things. What I quickly found was you can't walk in knee-high grass carrying even a medium-depth super full of honey. I tried to cut pathways. That got to be weird.

After trying everything I knew, I'm back to cutting grass. That is on my mind, is to cut the grass, get the yard where I can physically travel in it, move equipment here, move equipment there, and get these jobs done without taking a tumble while I'm trying to carry this or while bees are attacking me and I'm trying to get away. You need to pick up the speed and you just can't run because of the tall grass. I'm going to make an effort to get that done.

On a different subject, I've talked about it several times. I picked up a small, desperate swarm way back all those months ago when this year was just a bright gleam in my eye. I went out there with my grandson to get him to help me to look at this small colony that had inexplicably moved into some old equipment that had a thriving wax moth population in it. Why the swarm chose that colony mystified me. I talked about it back in the spring, back in the early summer, still mystifies me. I did the best I could to get the heaviest part of the wax moth-laden equipment out and then I let them do their own thing because they made this bed, I'm going to let them sleep in it.

If this one-pound swarm wanted to live in this really trashy equipment, then you chose this nest, make it work. I left them on five frames of the best frames that there were in this mess. I put it in a five-frame nuke. Years ago, I read time and again that bees do a better job of running their natural lives in a cavity semi-suited to their size. You don't want to put a three-pound package on four deeps, for instance. You put a three-pound package on one deep and then add equipment as the bolus of that swarm grows and grows.

That was my mentality. I'm going to reduce the size of the cavity, put this small colony in something that it can manage, something that can defend itself, and then I went about my business for the spring and the summer. I did a piece where I talked about that colony a few months ago. It was a real C+ to a B-. It had come around and I boldly made the statement at that time that I would have to be making decisions about this colony before winter got here. It's that time.

Those five frames are filled out nicely. The bees got the wax moths under control as well as they could. Knock on wood. The bigger colonies in my yard didn't rob this small colony out. It's still back there. Five frames that are filled up. This is my plan. I'm going to take from those who can and give to those who couldn't. I'll take some of the extra honey from the bigger colonies, five frames, and I'll make this a 10-frame colony. I think I'm going to put it in some of the expanded polystyrene equipment to see if that helps them maintain their winter temperature better.

It's been my experience in the past that if I don't really do a good job of ventilating those expanded polystyrene colonies, the plastic colonies, that they hold too much moisture. They need to be ventilated well because those boxes don't absorb moisture and extra water accumulates in the colony. If you don't have a screen bottom board, yuck, yuck, yuck, you know what happens, it's going to be wet, mold, too damp, colony's going to die.

Still, if I could give some insulatory effect, maybe a better plan would be just to put them in wooden equipment and then to insulate the wooden equipment. Here's the dig. See, my list is growing now. Not only have I got to find the equipment, not only do I have to take five frames out and move them over, now I've got to insulate that colony. At what point do you say, this small swarm never has been worth it and it's not worth it right now? I just can't give it up. I just can't let it go. I planned at least to get that done.

Then there's the extra equipment. I don't store it inside anymore. It's been my experience in my life and my experience in my life only that when I bring that equipment in, then I just entice mice to come in and then I have a huge mouse problem in my barn where I store the equipment. I tend to leave the equipment exposed. I've talked about that to keep the wax moths down so much as possible and to leave it exposed in order to keep the mice out. That's it for that little colony. It's on my short to-do list to give it five more frames, most of those frames filled with processed, capped honey. To be sure that varroa populations continue to be knocked down, and then to wish them well and see if they can hang on till next spring. At this point, let's take a break and hear from our sponsor.

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Jim: In all the colonies, I've got to address mites. That's just constant. I'm always addressing mites. If I don't keep mites first, then I can't keep bees second. That's been a huge change in my beekeeping life that mites carried so much prominence in my management schemes, but I've got to do something to keep the mites knocked down. That being done, I've got to decide what to do with this honey. I took off a bit of honey in the spring. I didn't take off a lot. I'd rather have the honey on the bees than me to have the honey here in my shop.

Oh, please don't take this the wrong way. I really don't want a lot of honey anymore. I don't make enough to make any money selling it, but I do make enough for it to be in the way and for it to be more than I could eat. Then if you just start giving it away, then there's that. I'm working basically not just for free, but I'm actually going in debt labor and monetary wise, to produce this honey. I'd rather the bees keep most of it. I do want some, and I do need to give my neighbor some.

I'll have one last quick little extracting process. It's really humble, small extractor, hand-heated knife, just enough to make a big mess here in the shop and just enough to use about 50 gallons of hot water to clean it all up but that needs to be done. I've only tinkered with this one small colony. The other colonies outwardly seemed okay. Because of a list of issues in my life, I've left my bees alone a lot, but they do need a bona fide fall inspection. At that time, I'd like to get the colonies knocked back down to two deeps. I boldly wrote articles just a couple of years ago that I was going to go to single deeps.

Listeners, I just can't do that. When I see a single deep, I see a colony that's probably going to be crowded and soon to be in need of extra equipment. I'll put on another deep and then another one. Why do I use deeps? I've told you before, I use deeps simply because I have them. I have a large store of deeps that I inherited from my father who had a small bee supply dealership so I don't have to buy the equipment. Why don't you cut it down? That just goes on that list again. That's one more thing to do to get a saw set up, get carbide tip blades on it, rip those deeps down. Then the handles are not quietly positioned correctly. It's just something that's probably not going to happen.

I've got to access or review the honey situation. Be sure that the bee population is where it should be. I'm not going to do anything with queens. I haven't done anything with fall queens in years. If there's a problem that's dire with the fall colony, I'm probably just going to combine it. If it's a really run-down colony, and I'm comfortable telling you that I don't have any of those right now, certainly I will in the future, but I don't have any right now, I would just let them accept their fate.

It's never been the smartest bee move to take a weak, run-down colony made up of old, decrepit bees and combine that with a more vibrant, productive colony. It's almost like you're penalizing the good colony by making it now take over the responsibility for all these older, run-down bees and incorporate their welfare needs into that colony. I'll decide if the colony can make it or if the colony is not going to make it. should it be combined with another, or should you just let it go?

My time is already short, I can't get into it, but when you let it go, then all I've done is make a problem for next spring when you have to come back, clean out that dead equipment, look at those pathetic dead bees that died in the size of a cluster about the size of a baseball, desperately trying to get through the winter under my watch. That'll be a distasteful job. Nothing I do is perfect here. I don't want to just dump the bees out this time of the year, let them die, even on a cool early fall night.

I've got to decide what I'm going to do with these colonies. If everything's okay, can they make it? Now if honey stores, can I bring in several deeps for myself, run a short, quick processing event, make a little bit of honey, give it away? I want to get the equipment in a position that it can stand the occasional winter storm. If I stack equipment up into tall stacks, I've had it blow over in the past. What do you do with this stuff? If you're not going to put it inside, what am I going to do with it?

In my case, I stack on the ends, I set it around in the yards on level surfaces. I improvise those level surfaces. I would love to talk about that sometime, but not here, not now. I'll neaten things up in an effort to just know where the parts and pieces are next spring when that time rolls around. I don't do anything with wind guards or wind protection. I don't do a lot with packing.

Every spring, I'm just Mr. Mouth. I'm going to do a better job of insulating colonies, and as the season progresses, somehow it just stays on that list of things that could be done but don't get done. While I'm firmly believing that my colonies are not insulated well enough here in Northeast Ohio, I'm probably just not going to do much about it. I will monitor the flow. Goldenrod is just an absolute screaming harbinger of the fact that the season is taking its last gasp.

Normally, by now, I have smelled the stink of goldenrod. It's been remarkably dry, and I'll bet you that there's just not much of a goldenrod flow that's on. Now I'm really out of time, can't get into this. I've grown pessimistic to some extent in my area about exactly how beneficial goldenrod and black locust is. They both make dramatic floral presences, but I can't tell from my colony scales that the bees are really profiting from it.

I often think that the bees are getting more honey from those small asters in my area during seasons when there's good rain flow and the bloom population is good. I see more honeybees on those small asters than I do on those goldenrod florids. Those florids are full of insects, paper wasp, all kinds of insects, beetles, flies are just crazy for goldenrod. Then there's the occasional honeybee, but now you see, I'm off the subject.

I'm going to monitor that visible flow so that once it's clearly gone, then I'll go to the next stage of fall/early winter management. That would be to reduce colony entrances as much as possible. I'll leave my entrances set to three-eighths of an inch year-round. Hypothetically, mice can't get their head through that entrance, so they can't get in. Rather than tear down to the bottom board, flip those reversible bottom boards, I haven't done that in years.

A lot of the newer equipment has gadgetry that you can use to reduce the entrances, but I will close them down. The irony is I'm not really closing those entrances down for the cold so much as I'm closing those entrances down for mice and for the occasional late season winter season robbing that could occur when the big colonies have a good fly day and will go out and attack and mutilate their less fortunate beehive neighbors. I'll do the best I can to pursue that thing.

On my short list of things to do just so I can walk and have things under control next spring, I've got to knock down this grass. I haven't cut it now in about a month and a half. It needs it. That's boring work but I'll get it done. Secondly, I've got to deal with this small colony. I've got to do something with it that I've talked about with you in the past and decide if this colony has a shot for surviving or not.

As a quick aside, I'll probably do something with it just to play with it just to see how small a colony it can survive. I've had some stunningly small colonies that didn't have a chance of surviving survive when much larger colonies croaked. I don't know if there's a session in that sometime but why is that? Diseases, viruses, genetics? It doesn't always die just because it's small and it doesn't always survive just because it's large.

Those are the things that I guess I'll plan to do to see if I can get through the winter and then I'll start all over again next spring all starry-eyed. Can't wait for the season to start. Next spring will be the year of the years. Flow will be great. Queens will be great. Varroa populations will be small and I'll be young and strong again. That's my winter plan during this early fall season. I really suspect that this topic will come up again before hard winter sets in. I deeply, deeply appreciate you listening to me ramble here. I love talking about bees. Bees mean everything to me and I appreciate the time that you spend listening. Until next week, this is Jim telling you bye.

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